By Gouri Satya, Sr.Journalist
We often visit the Mysore Palace to admire its beauty or its illumination. Or, we visit the temples built around it, pray and return home. But we rarely notice some interesting carvings there or the murals in the two temples — the Prasanna Krishnaswamy Temple and the Shwetha Varahaswamy Temple. One such historic temple where some interesting features are worth seeing is the Lakshmiramanaswamy Temple. It occupies a unique place in the history of Mysore and the Maharajas. The chief deity in the sanctum sanctorum is Lakshmiramana, a small idol in the form of Vishnu. He is holding a discus and a conch. Located on the western side of the Palace, this temple is one of the oldest temples in Mysuru. It has a tall tower, which was renovated by Krishnaraja Wadiyar III in November, 1851. An inscription mentions a grant to the temple by an order of the King Narasa Nayaka, father of the famous Vijayanagar emperor, Krishnadevaraya, in 1499. It was in this temple that the ‘Pattabhiseka’ of the five-year-old Krishnaraja Wadiyar III took place on June 30, 1799.
